Let's take a look at the Emerson Arcadia 2001

Emerson Arcadia 2001 - Box Front

I was really excited to get this boxed. I had a unit years back that I traded, and since then the price of these have skyrocketed. They're not fantastic systems, so it's really not worth spending a ton of money on one. But I got a fantastic price.
Emerson released the Arcadia 2001 in late 1982. This is a true second generation console that has the capabilities of an Astrocade or an Intellivison. The story goes that it was intended to be much more advanced, but the final hardware wasn't up to spec.
At the same time in 1982 the third wave of consoles, ColecoVision and Atari 5200 were coming out. The Arcadia 2001 was obsolete overnight in the face of the far more powerful newer generation consoles.

Box top

I always find it interesting to see what games get featured on the box. The system does have a lot of clones, but one of the more notable games on here is Jungler which is actually by Konami. It's one of the few Japanese arcade games that wasn't already licensed to either Coleco or Atari.

Box side

In this image the number of clones is really obvious.

Inside the box

Holy pareidolia! The Styrofoam is weathered and has a hole in the bottom. A previous owner poked two holes near the top, and in a few moments you'll see why. I really do like this packaging. It keeps everything nice and snug.

Emerson Arcadia 2001

Console

The console itself is pretty tiny. It's the smallest of the second gen consoles until Atari came out with the redesigned "2600 Jr" model in 1984.

Back of console

Very basic. Channel selector, input for the power supply, and something on the far right that I am not sure what is. Maybe an alternate power input?

Bottom of console

For rubber feet and air vents. Not a lot to see here.

Controller

The controller design is pretty much directly ripped off from the Mattel Intellivision, which may have been ripped off originally from the Bandai Super Vision 8000.
It has a standard-for-the-era 12 button keypad that supports overlays, two action buttons, and a control disk.

Joystick

The disk area is capable of accepting joysticks, which is nice. I feel like they're really needed. The responsiveness is not on the level of Intellivision.
Oh, and that's why a previous owner of my system punched holes in casing, because they didn't want to have to detach the joysticks.

Games

Let's take a look at a common game. All of the box art on these things have water colors.

Box open

I really like the box design here. It folds open. There are separate pockets for the manual and the keyboard overlays. The cartridge fits into a very nice trey area. This is really the best box design until Sega Master System came along with their hard plastic clam shell cases.

Cartridge

Here's a look at the back of the cart. For some reason it's tall. But not all carts were tall. In fact, I've had two copies of the same game that were tall and short. I am not sure why Emerson did this. My only guess is to make their carts stand out from other game carts in a unique way. Or it could be the same reason why the Atari 5200 is so large... a "bigger is better" mentality.

Game Contents

Here's all of the stuff that comes in the game box. Overlays, a, warranty card, instructions, and a catalog to order more games.

End

Here's normally the part where I hook it up and take a pic of it running. I turned it on and the power light on the console came on, but my TV got no signal. I began trouble shooting. Testing the connections. Testing the RF unit. Eventually I wondered if the cartridge was bad (not likely, since there should have been some signal) so I removed the cartridge. In doing so smoke began to billow out of the cart slot. It was then that I realized that this console was literally on fire. What a let down. I've been collecting since 1997 or 1998, and I've never, ever had a console catch on fire.

Inside

A few people wanted to see the fire damage. So I opened it up. The entire console is encased in shielding that is soldered together. What a pain in the ass.

Fire damage

Well, there you have it. The other side of the board is completely clean. I wonder if it's repairable.